Launched, your thoughts please. Sorry long.

Hi I too have been launched into orbit and broke my pelvis and torn abductor muscle, it was middle of January about 3years ago now and was very unexpected. He has never done it again but I now l now trust my judgment of how he is feeling! He is very sensitive and I am virtually sure it was his tum that was sore and when I put my right leg back it hurt, it helps to know what was wrong or you will never trust them again.
 
I'd suggest fairly local bootcamp. Pro rider to get her working again, then you go and see if you can regain your confidence in her with the professional support, or if its not heading in the right direction, get the pro to sell her for you.
 
Last edited:
Flame_ said:
I'd suggest fairly local bootcamp. Pro rider to get her working again, then you go and see if you can regain your confidence in her with the professional support, or if its not heading in the right direction, get the pro to sell her for you.
Click to expand...

Yep I agree with this.

Hope you aren't feeling too sore
 
Alexa123 said:
Out of interest, what are people's views on horses exploding when they are in pain? Presumably they are trying to 'free' themselves /run away from the pain? Is that it? Presumably they don't rationalise in the same way as us and associate the pain with movement/weight bearing?
Click to expand...

I find that horses that are in pain and prone to 'exploding' usually do so when there is something else that tips them over the edge. For example, being made to work into their 'spooky' corner. It all becomes too much and they explode. Owner then thinks it can't be pain related because they only do it in spooky corner not realising that horse is at its wits end and only just keeping a lid on it then is asked to do something scary and bang!
 
OP, I haven't read all the replies but would have her checked for kissing spines as a first step. However, we had a horse here that would explode intermittently for no apparent reason, just be trotting along and then suddenly bolt and throw himself onto the arena fence. He put his owner in hospital twice. Back was xrayed and he had the nicest set of spinal processes I had seen. Absolutely nowhere near impingement. I can only think he had some kind of brain tumour.
 
Wagtail said:
I find that horses that are in pain and prone to 'exploding' usually do so when there is something else that tips them over the edge. For example, being made to work into their 'spooky' corner. It all becomes too much and they explode. Owner then thinks it can't be pain related because they only do it in spooky corner not realising that horse is at its wits end and only just keeping a lid on it then is asked to do something scary and bang!
Click to expand...



This, totally. First of all my horse with kissing spines only did in in a dressage arena at the markers. Then at home it was only at a couple of blue barrels near the side of the arena. His kissing spines were the cause all the time, it was just that added bit of pressure that tipped him over the edge.

Meanwhile a whole heap of people were telling me it was 'just behavioural', 'you haven't got the balls to ride him', 'he needs a man on him', etc, etc.

I would not send a horse away for training to correct behavioural issues until its spine and hocks had been x rayed, its suspensories on the hinds had been scanned and its sacroiliac nerve blocked.
 
Last edited:
I'm sorry, OP. Speedy recovery. This, sadly, sounds so familiar.

I had a TB that spent two months coming back into work an angel (owner was pregnant) and then turned into a ticking bomb. I had ridden him for approximately 3 weeks at his place and never experienced an issue. Took him to my yard, headed out for a hack and he exploded on the green. I marked this down to bad flies, and the green being swamped with people and music blaring. 6 more weeks passed and then it happened. Explosion in the school and he meant it. For more than two minutes his head was between his legs. I didn't come off but only because I saw his eye and his teeth and I thought 'he will probably go for me if I fall'. I felt like jelly and I have never felt so scared. My bottle upped and went. It then started to happen with more frequency and after the 4th time, and a little incident with some sedalin that he needed for the farrier (oh, hindsight is a wonderful thing) we found he had kissing spines. And a fractured ilial shaft that had never healed - probably from a rotational fall.

Please don't send her to a pro yard without getting her back and hocks x-rayed, and the sacroiliac joint blocked.
 
Wagtail said:
OP, I haven't read all the replies but would have her checked for kissing spines as a first step. However, we had a horse here that would explode intermittently for no apparent reason, just be trotting along and then suddenly bolt and throw himself onto the arena fence. He put his owner in hospital twice. Back was xrayed and he had the nicest set of spinal processes I had seen. Absolutely nowhere near impingement. I can only think he had some kind of brain tumour.
Click to expand...
Mine was like this - 5 times in circa 3 years she just lost it with me. Sometimes there was a reason but nothing, in my mind, to warrant the severity of the reaction. She had a full back, neck and hind leg scan, was scoped - nothing of note. I had saddler out every 5 minutes and stripped back all sugar. She went about 9 months good as gold before she did it again, this time on the road and I broke my hip. I've now retired her and she's a very good and sensible companion. I'm convinced it was pain related - perhaps low grade and as wagtail says, something else would happen and she couldn't cope with it all. Every now and again I look at her and think I could bring her back to work, then I think of the niggle in my hip and forget it. Check everything you can out - I think your mare is trying to tell you something hurts.
 
Wagtail said:
I find that horses that are in pain and prone to 'exploding' usually do so when there is something else that tips them over the edge. For example, being made to work into their 'spooky' corner. It all becomes too much and they explode. Owner then thinks it can't be pain related because they only do it in spooky corner not realising that horse is at its wits end and only just keeping a lid on it then is asked to do something scary and bang!
Click to expand...

also agree with this and would add that the pain can be a big problem or small issue depending on the horse in Q.

my own youngster outgrew a girth (had had it over a year with no problems,and did not realise he had changed shape so significantly) and suddenly became edgy with explosions at fairly minor noises or visual stimuli when he had never been a spooky horse.

it took 4 months to fathom but the day we changed his girth he stopped reacting and went back to being ultra chilled.

any kind of pain or discomfort can work the same way and its the straw the broke the camels back that causes the explosion.

also know of a horse that managed to work reasonably ok in a saddle with a broken tree on most days, but again any minor *thing* caused him to spook violently and once the saddle was swapped he was fine (hasten to add saddle was basically new and externally showed no sign of a broken tree even to the saddler! had to be opened up to see the crack)
 
Alexa123 said:
I suppose what I'm saying is - if WE are in pain we tend to avoid acrobatics!
Click to expand...

But *we* don't have someone sitting on us who will smack us with a stick if we stop moving. We can choose to avoid acrobatics, and anything else that exacerbates any pain we have. If the horse tries to avoid working for no apparent reason, it will be told off and made to work.

There isn't anything else as riders that we can do. If we dismounted and checked the horse over for pain at any sign of it not wanting to work, we'd all have huge vet bills and the world would be full of horses who do no work at all, because they've learned that the rider will get off the second they shake their head, plant themselves, spook or become sluggish. Where a horse is in pain and can't choose not to work, it makes sense there would be the occasional (or more frequent) explosion. Though that is not to say that every horse who explodes is in pain.
 
Hi,
We have got a pony who had been off work for nearly two years and on box rest for most of that.
I brought him back into work three times, the first two times he was still not right, and reacted violently, we went back to the vet.
Be patient and listen to your gut feeling.
Eventually we have got to the bottom of it, 6.5k later - thank you NFU insurance .
However, we started to bring him back to work about a year ago now, and I just decided to take it very very slowly. He's a total idiot if he's been off, and I had to turn him out sedated for a bit before I could contemplate getting on, after months of inhand walking and airs above the ground.
He has then had months of just being ridden at walk round the lanes. It was a couple of months before I could trust him with my girls riding,but the time came.
Now, one year on he feels really strong and absolutely fine. I'm sure it's been down to taking our time with him.
 
My normally angelic, bombproof cob x exploded four years ago - she was trying to tell me for weeks previously that something was wrong, I believed what everyone else told me (because I was a novice horse owner), that she was being naughty - she suddenly started napping downhill away from the yard.

The day she exploded, she went up and over and I got airlifted with a broken pelvis and ribs, so I do feel your pain, I hope you heal soon. The vet suspected kissing spines (she had already been xrayed for this when I first got her) but it turns out that she had bone spavins in both her hind hocks and that coupled with her hormones - she was coming into her first season of the year - sent her doolally - the straw that broke the camel's back, she was even trying to tell me when I got on her that fateful day but I still ignored it!

After the accident, she was instantly remorseful, I have a memory of seeing her galloping over the farmer's crops whinnying loudly and my friend, who caught her, said she was shaking like a leaf, but my point is that she was in pain, and trying to tell me for ages. I just didn't listen. My horse also has a high pain threshold so god knows how much agony she was in, she is a one in a million, and to this day, I blame the event on myself.

I am no expert, but your issue does sound like a pain related problem - if you feel it is, then it probably is! I hope you manage to get it rectified. I was told that I might never ride my mare again - she and I had two years off in the end, and now, because of being told that I might never ride her, I have her two year old daughter. However, I had had her a bit longer than you have had your mare, I knew she wouldn't go anywhere even if she was a big dog for the rest of her life.

What have I learnt? To always trust my gut instinct!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top